Waldo
Palmer, Class of 1930"Kewpie
of the Month" August 2004David
H. Hickman High School has lost one of its ALL-TIME
Greatest Supporters!

The
sentinel of Alexander Avenue has died.

Waldo Palmer, who never lacked for
opinions and never met a stranger, passed away Friday from complications
of gall bladder surgery.For 92 years, Alexander Avenue
served as Palmer’s harbor when he met his met his future wife, Nannie Mae
Fenton when they were children, as he attended Hickman High School and
when he worked as a painter for practically his whole life. But Palmer
was better known for his doings beyond a paintbrush, daughter Eva Sue Calvin
said.

There wasn’t a pond or creek in
Boone County Palmer hadn’t tossed a lure into.

"He had no qualms about coming up
at your door and asking if he could fish in your pond," Calvin, 67, said.
"He knew where the best fishing was in the county."

Palmer taught dozens of children
how to fish. And there were few people along Alexander Avenue who didn’t
know Palmer, for good or bad.

"Daddy was a one-man neighborhood
watch," Calvin said. "He reported to police more than one crack house in
the neighborhood. He wasn’t going to let you get by with a lot of stuff
in his neighborhood."

Because Palmer, his brother and
his friends built the home he occupied at 414 Alexander, Palmer felt especially
vested in that street.

When he wasn’t policing the neighborhood,
he worked with volunteers building houses for Habitat for Humanity, served
on the Library Board and worked with Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Rainbow
Girls.

He served from 1959 to 1960 on the
Columbia City Council. In 1999 and at age 87, he opined against the "Taj
Mahal" appearance of the proposed Columbia Public Library. At age 90, he
argued against decriminalization of marijuana at a city council meeting.
Other duties included service on the Boone County Fair Board of Directors.

"He was very active up till about
six months ago," Calvin said. "If it was too cold or too hot, he didn’t
get out. He had some back problems, but that didn’t stop him from getting
out and seeing what was going on."

Palmer loved to drive - he even
drove himself last Saturday to the hospital when he felt ill.

He and Nannie Mae kept a mattress
in the bed of their blue Chevy pickup and visited all 48 contiguous states.
When Calvin and her five siblings were growing up, he’d drive them around
to the four corners of Boone County.

"He thoroughly enjoyed riding out
of the county roads," she recalled. "He would take the family out for a
ride and point out who lived where and who he used to visit. He probably
knew Boone County better than anyone else."